


Friends

by orphan_account



Category: the raven cycle
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam alternated between looking out the window, and looking at Ronan while pretending he wasn’t, and then getting brave and making it obvious that he was looking at Ronan. Staring. Admiring. Ronan was his friend, and it struck him as odd how normal this had become. Two years ago, Adam would have never believed he would ever just be able to hang out with someone like Ronan Lynch: rich, entitled, above Adam in every conceivable way. And yet here they were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

Adam lifted his head from his desk inside Borden House – damn, had he fallen asleep again? Monday mornings were the worst, because he was tired out from an entire weekend of working. School was easier than his jobs, but he seemed incapable of doing even that this morning. He listened to the substitute teacher drone on about noun declension. He wondered what had happened to Greenmantle. He wondered if Greenmantle was dead. No, wait. A few days after they’d escaped from the cave below Cabeswater, everyone had sat in the living room at 300 Fox Way and the Gray Man had debriefed them all about what had gone down on the Dittley farm. So Greenmantle was still out there. Maybe in Henrietta still? He wondered when Ronan was going to bring this up to him. Surely that was inevitable.

He laid his head down on the desk again. He told himself it was just for a second, but then he kept stringing on more and more seconds until Ronan kicked his chair from behind, and he looked up to see that they were the only two people left in the room. He’d have to catch up on the homework outside of class now, and it would take longer because he’d have to figure it out on his own. He wasn’t even angry anymore. It was just one more tiring thing adding weight to the already unbearable pile of unaccomplished tasks hanging over him.

Ronan kicked his chair again. “Wake up, loser,” he said.

Adam stared at him through slitted eyes, adjusting to the light. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Wanna skip?” he asked, and although it was clearly phrased as a question, Adam knew that there was really only one answer that Ronan would let him give, so he gave it.

“Sweet, man,” Ronan said. “Ten a.m. and I’m already sick of this place.”

“You’re always sick of this place,” Adam pointed out.

Ronan grinned. “Do I have any reason not to be?”

Adam followed him out to the student parking lot. He leaned against the driver’s side door in exhaustion as Ronan picked up a rock he found on the ground and chucked it as far as he could.

“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?” Adam said. Ronan turned around and sauntered up to him.

“Three guesses,” he said, holding up that many fingers. He seemed to be in an unusually cheerful mood. Adam wondered at the cause of it.

“Barns?” he asked.

“If you knew, why’d you ask?” Ronan said, and then he kicked at Adam’s leg so he would move out of the way in let Ronan into the BMW. Adam rolled his eyes and went around to the passenger side. Ronan started the car. Adam kept waiting for the usual barrage of thumping bass to assault him but Ronan didn’t turn on the stereo. That was okay, he supposed. They could talk. They were friends, and friends talk. He didn’t mind.

After ten minutes of silence, however, Adam realized that if they were going to talk then he had to be the one to initiate it. “So, Gansey and Blue,” he said.

Ronan raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

“They seem to really like each other lately,” Adam continued. Ronan snorted. “What?” Adam asked.

“Do you care?” Ronan said, and it came out a little harsh. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

Adam made a vaguely annoyed noise and said, “not like…like I would have used to. I just think it’s interesting, is all.”

Ronan looked at him for a second, considering. “Interesting how so?” he asked.

Adam shrugged. “Just that they’re two of our best friends and it would be nice to know if they’re…involved. So we don’t accidentally walk in on something awful, that kind of thing.”

Ronan’s smile was genuine now. “Yeah, Parrish, I’m surprised too. I’m not sure how Gansey’s going to break the news to Glendower, you know? Eternal love betrayed and all that.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to smile. “Well, I suppose now one of us had better start courting him so he doesn’t get lonely.”

“Yeah, you get dibs,” Ronan said.

“Well, obviously,” Adam replied, and they were back to their silence, but this time it was a comfortable one instead of something electrically charged. It stayed that way until they arrived at the Barns. Adam alternated between looking out the window, and looking at Ronan while pretending he wasn’t, and then getting brave and making it obvious that he was looking at Ronan. Staring. Admiring. Ronan was his friend, and it struck him as odd how normal this had become. Two years ago, Adam would have never believed he would ever just be able to _hang out_ with someone like Ronan Lynch: rich, entitled, above Adam in every conceivable way. And yet here they were. Adam took a long moment to bask in the self-satisfaction of knowing that he was now the sort of person who was capable of having friends like the boy sitting next to him right now. Capricious psychic forests and murderous Latin teachers aside, things weren’t so bad right now.

Not bad at all.

Ronan pulled in the driveway. Adam watched Ronan transform as he looked around the place he knew best, the place he had grown up in, the place that had created so much of him. Adam felt a little surge of gratitude to this place, then shook his head. What was he going on about? He must be even more sleep-deprived than he thought.

Ronan parked the car in the big dusty circle near the farmhouse. Adam unbuckled and followed him out of the car. He looked around expectantly.

“House? Barn?” he asked. Ronan considered for a moment, then said, “I don’t feel like working today. Not like I have any bright ideas anymore anyway. Let’s just go in the house. I spent the entire goddamn summer on that, it can wait.”

Adam decided not to press further. If Ronan was frustrated with his attempts at waking his father’s dreams, then let him be frustrated. Adam felt like now, with everything speeding up in a way, was the worst time to be procrastinating with this, but it wasn’t his project.

Ronan opened the door to the farmhouse, sarcastically holding it open for Adam and bowing as Adam walked in.

“You’re ridiculous,” Adam said, but he was pleased. He wasn’t sure what this game of back-and-forth was becoming now, only that they were playing it more and more often.

Ronan followed him through the door and kicked his boots off into a corner. Adam removed his own shoes and set them side by side under a wooden bench.

Ronan looked at Adam. Adam looked at Ronan. Ronan looked up at the cobwebs on the ceiling.

“So, uh, any particular reason we’re here?” Adam asked.

“Because we can, Parrish,” Ronan said. “I could always drive you back to Aglionby if you like.” He winked.

“Nah, I’m good.”

Ronan nodded. “Good.” There was that smile again, like some joke that Adam wasn’t sure whether or not he was supposed to be in on. His stomach fluttered. Probably he’d forgotten to eat breakfast. He was so tired, not like he even remembered. He followed Ronan through the kitchen and up some stairs. Adam had only been to the Barns twice, and in the actual house once, with Gansey and Blue there too. They hadn’t gone upstairs that time. Bedrooms, he supposed? Although Niall Lynch’s house wouldn’t necessarily conform to standards. There could be anything up there: a jungle, an ocean, a galaxy.

They reached the landing, and Adam looked through the open doors. Bedrooms after all. Was there ever a time, he wondered, when Ronan had been able to sleep, to really sleep, not to just toss and turn all night? He smiled at the thought of a much younger and smaller Ronan curled up on a bed in one of these rooms, dozing as peacefully as Adam had seen Matthew do many times. He wondered if they would look similar when they slept. Not in features, because Ronan was muscled and sharp and his hair was buzzed off, but in the way that those features were arranged: at ease. Rarely did Adam see Ronan when he wasn’t coiled up like a spring. It got worse when he was angry, and less when he was gleefully insulting someone, but it never really completely disappeared. Just like Adam had felt his whole life under his parents’ roof. More and more, he was finding ways in which he could relate to Ronan, could understand this strange and wonderful creature.

But Ronan wasn’t a creature, per se. No, that wasn’t the right word. He was human, so tragically and wonderfully human: flawed, hurting, living, breathing, and so, so, alive. He was a riddle that kept changing its question every time Adam thought he came close to finding an answer. There was nothing about Ronan Lynch that was predictable. There was nothing about Ronan Lynch that was like Adam had thought before they had become friends, and even that he thought for so long afterwards. What was Ronan? Adam kept finding himself turning this question over in his mind lately. For some reason he was desperate to know, to understand Ronan’s mind, to understand Ronan’s soul.

His mouth formed the word before he became aware that it was doing it. “Ronan,” Adam said. Ronan turned around, frozen.

“Yeah?” he sounded uncertain. Uncomfortable? Adam couldn’t tell. He started to shake his head, was about to say something like _it was nothing, I don’t know why I randomly said your name, it’s not like I adore the sound of it, the way lips always have to form a smile to say the second syllable, every little thing I’ve come to associate with the word “Ronan”, the danger, and what you do to me, that is even more dangerous yet_ , but then Ronan’s blue eyes were locked onto his, expectant, and Adam hurriedly tried to think of some dumb question to excuse having said Ronan’s name, something like _where’s the_ bathroom or _can I get a glass of water, it’s fucking dusty in this house, if you come live here when Matthew turns eighteen don’t you know that one of you is going to have to clean it?_ Adam opened his mouth and shut it, blushing.

“What, Adam?” Ronan asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

Adam took this opportunity to recover. “It’s _Adam_ now?” he taunted. “What did I do to deserve you actually calling me by my name? Should I be worried?”

Ronan’s eyes widened, just realizing what he’d done as Adam called him out on it. _What the hell_ , Adam decided. Now was as good a time as any to put him out of his misery. He leaned forward. Ronan backed away incrementally. His face was very still.

“Ronan,” Adam said again, teasing, enjoying the sound of the word on his tongue.

“Yes, Parrish?” Ronan snapped. He looked like an animal about to bolt.

“I think I liked it better when you called me Adam.”

“What?” Ronan said.

“You heard me.” Adam smirked. He braced his hands against the wall and the bannister and arched backwards slightly, biting at his lip.

“ _Adam_ ,” Ronan said, “what the hell are you doing, man?”

“Stop playing dumb, Lynch,” Adam told him, and was rewarded with another raised eyebrow and incredulous stare.

“So I’m dumb now, Parrish?”

“Well, you could be smarter.”

“How so?” Ronan took a step towards him.

“Well, for instance, you don’t seem to be very good at figuring out what other people want from you.”

“And what do they want from me?” Ronan asked dryly.

“You don’t have to be afraid, Lynch,” Adam said. “Do it.”

Ronan’s mouth opened in shock. “Do… _it_?” he said, weakly.

Adam nodded his head once. “If you want to, then do it. And I’m pretty fucking sure you want to.”

“Okay,” Ronan said, “okay.”

But when he finally did, it was so much better than _okay_.


End file.
